Growing Pains

So the past couple snow days I've been enjoying a lot of scrapbooking and season three of The OC. Don't judge. Today I watched the episode where the kids graduated from high school. I found myself shedding tears over memories. Do you remember high school graduation?  It was a bit sad for me, thinking about not seeing my friends as often, and for some, perhaps never again, but mostly it was a day of sheer joy, accomplishment, and possibility. There you were, standing on the precipice of the rest of your life, looking ahead into the golden horizon. There was nothing but possibility, nothing but opportunity, nothing but good and exciting things to come. College graduation wasn't even quite the same. By then you had some life experience. You'd begun to taste reality of life as an adult, and this time when you stood on that precipice, the horizon was full of greens and blues and hues of the real world. What was ahead of you was still opportunity, but on a different scale. What was ahead of you was your life, and you had made decisions --unwittingly shutting some doors, whereas at high school graduation every single door was open to you. Granted no door can be shut permanently, but it's not realistic to keep all doors open and just stand there. At some point you have to go through a few of them, and that's what college and choosing a career path is about.

So as I lay on the couch cuddled in my blanket with my hot chocolate, snowed in with tv shows of years gone by, I shed a tear. I found myself longing for the days full of exhilarating possibility and the drive to get going to see where your life would take you. That first feeling of free-falling into adulthood that was pure adrenaline. I found myself longing for more possibility, more opportunity.  And then I thought again. What you gain in those years of reality and growing up and college and life experiences is, well, experience. You gain love, you know hurt, you discover new things, new places. I had been feeling like experience was anchoring me down, making me feel smothered and claustrophobic by the lack of abounding new possibility and opportunity. But it isn't really that way, is it?  I mean, yes, once you've done and seen things once, it will never be new again, but that doesn't mean there aren't new mountains to be tackled right?

The real answer I suppose is somewhere in between. I don't know that it's possible to retain that high-school graduation feeling of impenetrable hope and conquer the world spirit. After all, as you begin conquering, there is simply fewer new things to conquer. But I don't think that's all bad. You learn that there are bumps in the road, holes in the bucket, and sometimes it's hard to make them worth something. Sometimes there might not be good to be found in all of them. For the most part though, you learn that though the bumps hurt and the holes drain sometimes more quickly than we'd like, there is a beauty to be found in the experience. So you trudge on, sometimes with heavier boots than others. I think there is a challenge in finding new things and in continuing to keep a piece of that spirit with you as you learn and grow. And that, my friends, is today's thought.  Happy sleeping, and good-night!